


A Death In The Family

by Meddalarksen



Series: Urban Magic AU [1]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mage!Mycroft, Pre-Canon, Suicide mention, selkie!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 23:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13511700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meddalarksen/pseuds/Meddalarksen
Summary: It's a terrifying thing to stare at the ghost of your own possible future and wonder if it's destined or if it's possible to divert it.





	A Death In The Family

Early 2003

Sherlock stood in the kitchen of 221B, monographs and printouts scattered around the flat, taking up space on the counters and spread over the furniture in the living room. It wasn’t helping no matter how many articles he found, no matter how many pieces of knowledge he possessed, nothing explained what had happened.

His head snapped up at the sound of the front door of the flat opening and he bared his teeth ever so slightly when he caught the scent of Mycroft’s aftershave. Shifting his expression to a sneer he moved to fill the kettle and set it to boil just so he wouldn’t be looking directly at his brother. The magic Mycroft was carrying raised the hair on his arms and he didn’t much feel like facing that in addition to his brother, “I don’t remember giving you a key.”

“You didn’t. Father has a spare, remember?” Mycroft said as he entered the kitchen and Sherlock held himself still rather than throw something when he heard a stack of his papers pushed out of the way.

“Of course, how remiss of me I’ll have to have those locks changed again. Tea?”

“Sherlock, for god’s sake.”

Sherlock simply poured two mugs of tea and unceremoniously shoved one at his brother as he strode toward the living room, leaving it to Mycroft to either catch it or end up with shattered ceramic and hot tea all over himself, “I cannot imagine that we have anything to talk about and so I will thank you to leave now.”

“Can’t I be worried about you?”

“Whatever for?” Sherlock set his cup down on the mantle and swept up the nearest pile of research into the effects of a lost skin on a selkie’s mental state.

“We just buried our mother,” Mycroft replied, frowning.

“Who we barely saw after the divorce,” Sherlock said, picking up the wooden box he had buried under a mountain of books. “Whyever would that be troubling? It’s not as though she died of the broken Trust or anything like that.”

“Why do I even bother?”

Sherlock grit his teeth and turned to face his elder brother, “You answer me that question.”

“She overdosed, Sherlock. You and I both know that,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock sneered at that, “Don't come here and tell me what I know. Yes, there was a needle. But I know that she was as close to the sea as she could get. I also know that these were all around her.” He dumped the box out, scraps of fur fluttering to the floor around his feet. “Don't tell me that these had nothing to do with it, I think I know that better than you.”

Mycroft stared at the pieces of their mother’s pelt on the floor, “Where did you--”

“Well Father certainly didn’t want them when they were offered to him. I assume she kept them as what she still had of it,” Sherlock bit out. “Now, if you don’t mind leaving, I have actual work to be doing.”

“Yours,” Mycroft started to say and then cut himself off.

Sherlock bared his teeth again, considering ignoring the fact that his brother was taller than he was and almost two stone heavier to try to throw him out, “Is safe where no one else can find it. Now, get out.”

Mycroft pursed his lips, eyes narrowing and Sherlock could feel the tension in the magic around him. It popped and crackled in the air and against Sherlock’s skin like static electricity before Mycroft pulled it back under his control, the only thing he had ever actually bothered to put effort into was making it look like nothing could make him lose his temper. “Take care of yourself, Brother. I’ve got to go out of town for a new branch of Diogenes. I’ll be gone for a while.”

“And good riddance too,” Sherlock muttered, picking up the coroner’s report and assessment of their mother’s death again. It wasn’t as though it was going to offer new insights, she’d been strangely thorough in it all between the slow bleed out she’d caused by the wound in her wrist and the sheer volume of drugs in her system.  He barely heard Mycroft leave as he went over the details once more in the hope that it might offer some clue as to how she had come to that fate and how he might best avoid the same.


End file.
